


without magic

by Lilian



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Agoraphobia, Angst and Humor, Blood and Injury, Coming Out, Draco Malfoy Redemption, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Multi, Pandemics, Polyamory, Sexual Content, Somebody Lives/Not Everyone Dies, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 01:14:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29618328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilian/pseuds/Lilian
Summary: Magic starts leaving the wizarding folk. They just lose their magic overnight and nobody has any idea why. How does Harry, Hermione and Ron cope with the huge changes so close to the end of the war?
Relationships: Harry Potter/Severus Snape, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy/Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger/Ron Weasley, Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Comments: 7
Kudos: 57





	without magic

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the Secret Snarry Swap 2018 originally, but then I got frustrated with it and went and wrote another fic which I ended up submitting. (Original prompt: After his battle with Voldemort, Harry is the only person left in the world with magic.)  
> Brushing this off after more than two years passed and I noticed… its got a bit of a covidy vibe. Sorry about that. 
> 
> Big thanks to Hippo for cheerleading <3   
> All mistakes are mine.

It starts about a month after the Final Battle. The trials and funerals all done, and the twins reopen the shop- Tonks arrives to the celebrations with a still-healing Remus confined to a magical wheelchair, with a blue-haired Teddy sleeping in his arms.

Harry feels almost peaceful, slightly amused even by Fred and George’s antics, so it makes sense that that's the time when they first experience everything slowly turning to shit. 

The Prophet reports over a dozen individuals turning up at St. Mungo’s that night, all with the same symptoms: they cannot get simple spells to work. Cannot do any magic at all, actually. 

Ron gets to the paper first, frowning as he skims the article. They are having breakfast in the half-reclaimed Grimmauld Place, and Harry’s inquisitive question is ignored for a second as they both smile up at Hermione (with the funniest bed head ever) wordlessly requesting coffee. 

“It says they became Squibs overnight,” Ron says, wondering. “Weird.” 

He passes the page to Harry and turns over to the Quidditch section. 

They get a Patronus message a few hours later, when they are about halfway through renovating the second salon on the third floor. Professor McGonagall asks if Harry’s house is available to hold an emergency Order-meeting in. Everything tilts into a bit of a panicked haze after, until he is able to focus on Hermione ordering him to make tea and sandwiches in the kitchen. 

He hears them arrive one after the other, some coming via fireplace, some knocking on the door. He thinks he hears Ron argue with someone. 

“It’s not fair to involve him in these sorts of things again… hasn’t he done enough?” Oh, Molly. 

McGonagall answers something sharp and cutting, then there’s murmuring he doesn’t understand, and after that Harry comes out of the kitchen to find, interestingly, all of them slightly flustered while Snape smirks and loiters a few paces behind them. Besides Snape and McGonagall, almost all of Hogwarts’ faculty is there, with the exception of Hagrid (who has moved to France for the summer to be with Madame Maxime) and Flitwick. Plus most of the Weasleys, Kingsley, Tonks and Andromeda. Some people are wearing Ministry’s robes or Mediwitches’ uniforms, unfamiliar to Harry. It’s clearly  _ not _ just an order meeting. 

“How did you all come in?” Harry asks, surprised and annoyed by some Order members' presumption that it’s okay to bring strangers around and invade his home for any reason. (When had he started thinking about this house as his? Perhaps around the time they redid the walls to a colour he chose? Was that a week or a month ago?) 

As soon as they register his presence, one of the strangers calls out. 

“Mr Potter! It’s the end of our time! Magic is disappearing!” 

It’s a cacophony of shouts and unpleasant chattering afterwards. 

Hours and the beginning of a headache later, the last of the people leave, most of them opting to go on foot, in fear of their magic choosing mid-Apparition to give out and splinching them. There were already reports of several people that happened to, no need to experience that pain, the medipeople insisted. Most of them could be helped, but it is implied by their heavy silences that not everyone was lucky enough to get enough parts of themselves into Mungo’s in time to survive. 

So far, they cannot tell why it happens or who it targets or what the cure could be. There is already a rising panic among Wizarding Britain, and they expect even more of that as people hear about it. So far, the number of cases seemed to have exploded, with more and more people affected. If it goes at the same rate (is it a virus of sort? Are the affected ‘infecting’ each other? They haven’t found anything indicating that, but since they cannot find anything irregular at all, they cannot rule that possibility out), they fear that in a matter of a few weeks the population of their world will become non-magical. 

“What do you think there is to do?” Harry asks Snape, who is sitting on his porch after the meeting, nursing the remnants of a glass of red wine. 

Snape shrugs, not looking away from the street. There are muggle children playing in a nearby playground: their laughter carries over to where they are bathed in the setting sun. Harry observes him for as long as he can: he is slowly getting back into shape after his slow recovery of the snake-bite. Pale as usual, but Harry can’t see the scar on his neck, not like in the first few weeks when it was angry-red and moved constantly as Snape talked. They talked a lot then, enough that Harry is sure he will never forget how that scar twisted as he had spoken. 

“Wait,” Snape murmurs after Harry has already given up on his answer. “There is not much else than to wait. It will only get worse, of course.” 

“Aren’t you a ray of sunshine,” Harry mutters to himself, and is quietly pleased when Snape snorts a bit in amusement. 

“Take care, Potter,” Snape says, giving the glass back to him before he leaves. Harry replies ‘you too,” and can’t help but marvel how civil they’ve gotten over the last month. It is mostly due to Snape starting to treat him like he treated everybody else, that meaning less hate, more careful indifference. Plus Harry was still sorting through his emotions towards the man after the revelation of his memories. Honestly, it was doing wonders for their relationship. 

*

Ron wakes him up in the middle of the night the next day. He is white as a sheet and shaking, and Hermione is behind him, holding on to his arm, worriedly asking what’s wrong. 

“I can’t turn the light on,” Ron manages shakily, after a while. It’s all he says that night. Harry quietly murmurs  _ Lumos _ and leads them into the library, where to his  _ Alohomora _ , the liquor cabinet opens, and he pours all three of them regular whiskey. Hermione curls up in a seat and reads until dawn, while Ron stares into the fire and Harry, as he often does nowadays, wonders about the future. 

*

They whisper their names only in horrified tones, as if the ones who’ve lost their magic had died. Fred and George and Neville and Lucius Malfoy. 

Ron’s grief sits on the house like an overgrown mushroom on a tree trunk, so Harry and Hermione gently navigate around him as they discuss Hermione’s theories, her research, her ideas to ease the transition for magical folk. 

Harry thinks she’s not that worried for her own powers, but then catches her stroking over her wand lovingly, a sad look in her eyes, as if she’s sure of their imminent goodbye. 

Harry is all right with the concept of being without magic. It is wonderful, sure, simply… well...  _ magical _ , a fairy-tale in and of itself, but as such, he understands that it can be gone as quickly as one blinks awake from a pleasant dream. Makes sense to him in his bones in a way he can’t quite explain. Perhaps its his upbringing’s doing, but magic will never feel quite real, not even as he is slowly becoming the only one in the circle of their friends who still has the power to control it. More and more he thinks back on the moment when Hagrid told him, less than a decade ago, that he was a wizard. 

Nevertheless, he waits a few seconds after every time he utters a spell, waiting for the inevitable to happen. But the days pass, and it doesn’t. 

*

The Minister of Magic commits suicide three days later. He is not the first one to do so, but this is the news that finally gets Hermione to close her book and put her research aside. She gets up from the couch she spent the last 48 hours on (at least as far as Harry knows, because that’s when Hermione said to him, with a sigh, “Mine is gone as well, Harry.”, before disappearing into ancient texts again), and there is forceful determination in her eyes.

Ron goes with her, bleary-eyed and somewhat unsteady on his feet and looking a little sick. 

They come back only a few minutes before midnight (just when Harry started to get really worried, fighting with himself to make himself leave the house to look for them), but their demeanour is changed completely. Both invigorated, Hermione is scribbling notes frantically while Ron complains about pure-blood racists and the unbelievable conservatism of the Wizengamot. 

Their eyes sparkle as they fill him in on what they accomplished in the last few hours. Hermione proposed the idea of the Community of New-Wave Squibs, an Emergency Conference to Deal with the Most Pressing Issues, and with the help of Ron’s support (“it’s crazy how fucking backwards our society is, Harry, I literally had to stand behind her and repeat everything she said and they ignored all her brilliant ideas until I spoke. But they listened to me because apparently I’m a white male and that’s more important than wanting to save our society, so I basically spent my whole day shouting at old bigots, Ginny will be  _ so fucking proud _ of me”). The only thing the Ministry seemed to have figured out by the  _ fifth _ day of the epidemic was to somehow ensure that the new non-magical folk could get in and out of their buildings and other magical establishments. Harry is sure, privately, that everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief when Hermione and Ron started bringing in ideas and demanding changes. 

Harry also gets a peculiarly worded letter from Snape, which is a bunch of thinly veiled insults and perhaps a question about how he is, but he cannot tell for sure, so he just ignores the strange correspondence. 

*

After the next meeting, scheduled just the next day, people keep asking Harry.

“How are you?” 

He is touched at first, but gets confused the very next second, when disappointment, wonder, and sometimes outright resentment sits on faces upon his vague responses. More than a half of their gathering, thirty-something people in total, has lost their magic already. 

Snape is in the room too, and Harry is not quite sure why he feels he should go and engage him in conversation, but his gut sort of tells him he ought to. There is really nothing to discuss, though, so he just stares at the man’s back as he talks to Harry’s other ex-professors. It is rumoured that Snape quit as soon as he was able to speak again, and some even say he did it before that, writing a note to a visiting McGonagall. It doesn’t matter anymore, not with the current state of things, not when all the Wizarding World is predicting the end of things. 

The news of the day is that Draco Malfoy is organising  _ ‘Get Your Magic Back!’ _ retreats, and it’s  _ very clearly _ a rip-off: but at least it’s not that expensive that folks go bankrupt for participating in it. Ron still hates the whole thing (Malfoy) with a non-diminishing intensity (and absurdity, in Harry’s unvoiced opinion, even if it’s a shitty, opportunistic thing to do of Malfoy, he actually has been much more civil and bearable after the war and before the Situation started, going as far as apologising to all of them separately, together, privately and publicly too), and Ron keeps talking about hating his guts with an alarming ferocity, so Harry steers clear off him and seeks out Luna and Ginny, who are huddled together in a corner, talking quietly. 

As Harry steps closer to greet them, Ginny stiffens. Luna smiles at him, as usual, a somewhat far away look in her eyes, and offers a hug. Ginny glares at them, and murmurs. 

“Listen, we’re together, okay? Dating. Got any problem with that?” She stares at Harry menacingly, even as Luna kisses her face affectionately and coos something about jealousy being spread by yet another invisible magical animal. 

Harry feels dumbfounded. The shock of it is making him dizzy, but then he remembers that a few days ago, before the current shit-show started, Hermione sat him down and engaged him in a lengthy conversation about Sexuality and Gender in the Wizarding World. It was a whole lesson, basically. Harry was mildly surprised then, but now he suspects that maybe  _ this  _ was the reason for it. 

“Of course... not.” He swallows. Ginny’s gaze is murderous, but she always looks the most dangerous when she feels self-conscious or threatened. He can’t have that, they’re his closest friends after Ron and Hermione. Even if things ended pretty awkwardly with Ginny and they hadn’t really figured out yet how to talk to each other normally since. “I’m surprised, but.. umm.”  _ Right, so what was it that Hermione said about coming out?  _ “I’m honoured you shared that with me. Thank you for your trust, and...uuh. Congratulations?”

She deflates like a balloon. Blushes even harder. Luna’s smile brightens.

“See, I told you Harry would be fine with it!” She grins winningly at both of them. 

“Yeah, right. Sorry, Harry,” Ginny murmurs. 

“No, I understand,” Harry says back, just as embarrassed for some reason. “I mean, its a bit awkward, seeing how  _ we _ dated and all.”

Before he can start to worry about putting his foot even more into his mouth, the girls start to reminisce of that time, and the whole conversation naturally shifts over to the topic of their sixth year in Hogwarts. Harry feels so much lighter after that evening, even with the whole mystery illness constantly on his mind, but he doesn’t really worry about putting it into words why. 

*

Compared to Harry’s quiet days filled with chores around the house, Ron and Hermione are in a frenzy for more than fifteen hours a day. They are always exhausted but very eager to tell Harry about it afterwards. They usually nurse a cup of tea together in the dining hall or a cosier salon. Harry always prepares the tea, but today he forgot to put out the oatmilk Ron favoured, so he raises his wand in the middle of Hermione’s explanation of how the first days of the new Coalition For The Magic-lost are faring in the Ministry (the growing group supporting and carrying out their ideas on how to cope with the harrowing new challenges), and he  _ Invito’s _ the pitcher of milk out of their fridge to their table. His friends fall quiet suddenly. There is a kaleidoscope of emotions on their faces, but interestingly enough, worry wins out in the end. They share a long look.

“What?”

Hermione swallows heavily. 

“Harry, the public’s general attitude regarding magic-bearers is… becoming pretty concerning.” 

He turns to Ron, foolishly hoping for a joke or a lighthearted comment from his best friend that would make the tense air in the room dissipate. Surely it isn’t so bad. 

Ron’s furrowed brow radiates his anxiousness, however, and after a heavy silence he leans closer, resting a hand on Harry’s other hand. 

“You shouldn’t let anyone know about it, Harry.” His voice is full of conviction, and for a horrible second, it takes Harry back to the war. Blinking the moment away, he is faced with his friends' worried faces. 

Harry doesn’t think it’s such a big deal seeing how he never wants to go out. 

*

By the time Harry gets up the next morning to make breakfast for them, they are sitting in an uneasy fit of nervousness around the table, with the morning paper, and as always, with long parchments of Hermione’s cramped writing and a few books and drinks in front of them. 

“We think that it would be better to not stay quiet, actually,” Hermione says, jumping easily to continue the previous evening’s conversation. 

“What? You think I should come forward with it? To deliver some sort of message?” People have been doing that since about day two. There were a lot of inspirational speeches printed and distributed about how these new ‘challenges’ made people stronger and more reliant on others and therefore will have a wonderful effect on their society- alternatively, some of them tried to keep people’s spirits up by saying that the magic would come back after some time, and better than ever. 

“It’s highly unlikely,” McGonagall says stiffly when Harry asks her about it. She seems older, since her magic left her, more like an elderly woman than the strict professor she used to be. They don’t know what will happen to Hogwarts yet, but its hardly a priority when a, it’s summer, and b, the whole Wizarding World is collapsing around them rapidly. Literally. Reports fly around and emergency pamphlets are distributed seemingly every three hours to warn citizens to be careful around shoddily constructed magical buildings. Magic seems to be leaving not just them, but the world around it’s people. All magical beings, buildings, who knows where the line stops. 

Harry feels a headache and an exhaustion even thinking about it. Oh, he likes to imagine Hermione and Ron running around the Ministry issuing orders and arguing their way into getting funds for new projects (although there is less arguing now, Harry supposes that they finally became desperate enough to be glad someone steps up to deal with the disasters and brings in new ideas, and if anything, Hermione is  _ full _ of brilliant ideas. What she lacks, Harry reckons, Ron must supplement with his precise, strategic thinking).

They don’t need him, not really. He doesn’t want to become a political figurehead (not even when the Prophet is doing article after article speculating on where he could be), doesn't feel like he owns their world positive messages. (Voldemort is gone, isn’t that enough?) He hears Mrs Weasley comment to Remus that it’s post-war depression, but he doesn’t believe that, not completely. 

Before the whole disappearing magic incident, Harry had a lot of time to think. There were chores to do and people to help and recoveries to assist and funerals to attend, but for most of it, there had been a lot of time to think too. 

He thinks he doesn’t want to become a recluse in the house, but at the same time, he has no desire to set foot into any public place either. Before the current situation started, there have been instances where he’d gone out and people went absolutely bonkers over him. Not just reporters, even though they’d been admittedly the worst, but common people off the streets. No outing was free of at least four individuals demanding Harry’s attention. It wasn’t easy. Some of them went as far as to ask for stories or supposed wisdoms they seemed to be convinced Harry possessed. Now, if they learned Harry could still do magic while by their rough estimates about 80% of them could no longer possess that skill, the hysteria around his person would surely worsen. 

“Say not to give up or something, and admit that I still have it?” 

They both shook their heads rapidly. 

“No, we were thinking… that keeping quiet is not enough. We should say... Harry, we want to say that you lost it as well.”

Harry crosses his arms, and very pointedly glowers at their mugs which rattle a bit. It’s the closest he can do to a non-verbal, wandless Leviosa, but its very clearly a show of a power still present in him. He sort of wants to trust his hand, the one with the unfaded ‘I must not tell lies’ under the noses, but they look guilty enough, so he thinks they understand already. 

“It’s safer,” Ron says decidedly. “Nip all gossip in the mud. People will feel better too and hopefully that bollocks Malfoy totally started about you becoming the next Dark Lord or  _ you _ causing everyone to lose their magic will stop. Don’t look at me like that, he  _ is _ behind that.”

( _ He isn’t _ , Hermione mouths at Harry with an eye roll.)

“Most likely.” 

“Malfoy aside,” Hermione gestures over Ron’s heated gaze,” the rest of it is true. I say we do this, Harry. There is nothing easier than to have a loud conversation on our way to work, you know how many of those  _ beetles _ hang around waiting for a juicy detail about your life. You don’t even have to do anything, just be rude and don’t answer them if you run into anyone.” 

“And that’s what you do anyway!” Ron points out cheerfully. “Easy-peasy. This way hopefully no one gets into their head to attack you while you’re popping out for milk.” 

“I can protect myself,” Harry argues half-heartedly. “Seeing, how, I don’t know, I still have magic and all.” 

“Even better if no one expects that you can fight back.” 

“Even better if it doesn’t come to that because the masses are already sympathetic towards you.”

Harry reluctantly nods his consent (because ultimately, it shouldn’t really matter what people think), and after that, there is breakfast and a good-bye for the day. 

*

Snape comes around during the day, and although Harry is surprised as hell by it, he invites him in for tea. 

Snape demonstratively stirs the drink with a spell, and Harry sort of wants to snort indignantly at the frankly ridiculous display of magic. He’s like a preening turkey. Harry uses his spoon to mix the milk in, and ignores the petty, childish sound in his head that urges him to take out his wand and answer Snape’s silent, but utterly unsubtle provocation in kind. 

“How are you, Potter?” 

Harry smiles at him politely, trying to hide his glee and possibly failing spectacularly at Snape’s answering frown.

“News travels fast, I assume?” 

Snape hums, his eyes scanning him suspiciously. 

“What news?” 

Harry sighs. He has to keep himself from grinning, so he bites the inside of his cheek and stares into his lap mournfully. He doesn’t answer, and is positively delighted when Snape growls, put out. 

“Is it true that you lost your magic?” Snape demands, and Harry can’t quite believe that he gave up the pretence so easily. He  _ is _ getting soft. 

Harry bites down harder, and lets the pain his teeth inflict on his tongue make his eyes watery before he looks up at Snape. Snape stares at him for a long time, long enough for Harry to consider just to go to hell with the plan and tell him the truth. He trusts Snape, damn it. Hell, he only remembered being wary of his intentions by the time they reached the kitchen, and Snape did not hex him in the back. Since the memories, and his subsequent behaviour since waking up, there is no real question in Snape’s loyalty. His loyalty is  _ to Harry _ , and that is a relief and a small sort of warm comfort, even if they don’t really like each other. 

Suddenly, Snape relaxes back on his sofa. 

“Ah, I see,” He huffs, annoyed. “You’re a despicable actor.” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

The “ _ Obviously _ .” is spitted towards him mockingly. 

“Some people might believe you’d be devastated if it happened, but I disagree,” Snape explained, gaze fixed on his tea. “You’d experienced too much of the Muggle world to be as reliant on your wand as others who now find themselves almost crippled.”

That’s an easy deduction anyone could make based on a very basic knowledge of Harry’s early years, but it still takes him by surprise a little. Is that a compliment, or simply a statement? Is it a reminder that Snape knows some of his secrets, and knows  _ him _ as well? 

“Are you afraid of what will happen if yours goes?” 

“When,” Snape corrects with an unusual gentleness. “And no, I’m not.” 

Harry has the mind to call bullshit, but Snape is too serious and despite the intimate air around them, not close enough to Harry for him to do so. 

There is not much to say to that, so Harry just finishes his tea, and shares the surprisingly comfortable silence with Severus Snape. 

*

Barely a week passed since the first alarming article in the Prophet, but the number of the magic-lost and the number of casualties continue to grow. 

Hermione argues that they are actually combatting the challenges and they are reacting to them well. There is a smaller group within the Ministry workers, and the members of the Wizengamot that sees the crying need for positive and immediate actions. People who truly want to help and not hesitate to pull all-nighters to do so. 

Then of course, there are the others. For every eager person working towards their goals of bettering their rapidly changing society, there are those who need to be fought with on the way. Malcolm Smith, who is clearly pushing to fill the chair the minister’s suicide left gaping. Madame Jones in charge of International Affairs, who makes it incredibly difficult to communicate Britain’s strategies and new policies towards other nations, and does even less towards letting the foreigners' ideas in. Wizards who oppose working together with other magical beings to find out how the loss of magic affected them. Severus (when did he…? no,) Snape said they can be pretty grateful that the goblins lost their magic too otherwise the human part of the Wizarding World would have become very enslaved very quickly.

Hermione is visibly frustrated that she can’t be everywhere at once. If the time turners hadn't been destroyed Harry is almost certain she’d be using one to stretch out the hours of the day. 

And of course, there is Malfoy, who mostly likely just wants to smear others to make society forget about his family’s rocky status in their world and earn back some of the money they spent on lawyers and paying for society’s forgiveness. 

There are no days, virtually no time in their nightly interactions when Ron doesn’t complain or explode over something he said or did or ‘most likely’ was involved in. Harry honestly is starting to get seriously sick of it, but one evening, after they had a bit more wine than usual to go with supper, Ron starts to mumble.

“So Malfoy came around today to let us know that he agreed with Hermione’s proposition on the Muggle-Friendly New Suggestions or ‘whatever fancy name we’re calling it right now’ package and offered his help to convince the protesting board-members.” 

“He said my ideas were ‘excellent and a fantastic step towards our goals in ensuring  _ our _ people’s betterment’,” Hermione recounted, shaking her head bewilderedly. 

“He clearly just does this to fuck with us.” Ron waves his hand trying to pretend to be dismissive. “He’s been flirting with Hermione since… Thursday, I reckon.” 

Harry gapes at them, and he’s sure he has his chin actually hitting the floor when they exchange an understanding nod.  _ At the same time, it does explain Ron’s recent moods.  _

“I mean, the timing is awfully suspicious. Even if he had been in love with Hermione for some time now, which would be totally understandable since she is brilliant and everyone who isn’t in love with her is a moron, no offence Harry...” 

“None taken,” Harry chokes out, grinning at a semi-embarrassed Hermione’s giggle, but still shocked down to his very toes. Not just at what Ron said, but  _ how  _ he said it. 

“Still suspicious. So close to the upcoming Minister-election? Must have an ulterior motive.” 

“Or maybe I’m just irresistible.” Hermione jokes, but Ron agrees readily and seriously: “Of course you are. But it’s never just one thing with Slytherins.” 

Harry fails to answer in favour of regarding them, as if for the first time in… a long time. Ron and Hermione have been dating since the kiss they told Harry about in the Chamber. Harry would have expected Ron, who was quite hot headed and constantly berated Malfoy to go completely ballistic with jealousy over the very idea of him having a crush on his girlfriend. And… Why didn’t he? He acted like Draco wasn’t competition, and Harry had no idea how he got so confident in the knowledge that Malfoy faked or real crush on Hermione didn’t matter, while everything else he did was, for a lack of a better word, overreacted. 

Meanwhile, Hermione leans over to peck Ron on the lips, then yawns, then resolutely grabs her current book again. Ron goes back to toying with the sofa’s cushions absent-mindedly. Harry observes them for minutes, wondering how much he is missing with being home for the last… how much was it? One and a half weeks? He can’t quite remember the last time he went out, but it must have been some time before the magic started disappearing. 

“Ugh, I’m knackered,” Hermione murmurs a bit later. She goes over and presses a kiss on top of Harry’s unruly hair affectionately, then shares a longer kiss with Ron. “Good night, boys.”

After she is gone, Harry tries to word his questions non-offensively. 

“So… that Malfoy thing? You’re cool about that?”

Ron sighs such a huge sigh Harry’s eyebrows run up and disappear under his hairline. 

“Well, obviously  _ not.  _ But then again, I wasn’t lying, Hermione  _ is _ awesome. I can’t do anything about other people noticing that, now, can I?”

Harry shakes his head. 

“On the other hand, the one thing I  _ can _ change is how I react to people being attracted to her. If I lose my head with jealousy and behave like she’s my property just because I’m feeling insecure about her feelings towards me, or, you know, afraid of her deciding to want to be with me even if she gets offered better options… I don’t want to be someone who doesn’t trust their partner one hundred percent. And I don’t want her to think that I’m just a ‘brute macho’ who acts like someone else is trying to piss on their territory.” 

Harry doesn’t know what to say. 

“That’s… I mean that makes sense, but can you just… decide that it’s not going to bother you?” 

Ron shrugs. 

“It’s bloody hard, honestly, but I’m faking it ‘till I’m making it I suppose. And you’ve seen how Hermione reacts when I praise her.” He grins at Harry sheepishly. “She loves it, and I love that I can help her feel good about herself. So I started loudly agreeing and telling her how special she was and how much sense it made that Malfoy said she’s clever and all, and that is super easy to focus on.” 

Suddenly, his smile takes a devilish turn. 

“Also,  _ you should have seen _ Malfoy’s face. He pretty much expected me to try to murder him and the first time I agreed with him… Merlin, it was  _ priceless _ . He’s been getting better at masking his surprise, but it’s still dead-funny.” 

Harry thinks about this before going to sleep. Only about a year ago, he thought he knew how the future would look like: him dating Ginny, Ron and Hermione getting married, then children, and living, and… But Ginny was with Luna now, and to imagine Hermione getting hit on by Malfoy… While everyone was essentially becoming Squibs… and him feeling no real motivation to leave the house... He thought life would be easier after Voldemort. And in some ways, it is. If you didn’t count the pandemic. 

*

Harry is alone the next day, when the fireplace flares up and Mrs Weasley’s desperate cry carries through. 

“Help!” 

He is just in time to keep the Burrow from collapsing completely on Percy. As he arrives, Ginny is still holding on to some of the upper floors, but her magic gives out completely after getting his brother to safety. Thankfully, Percy gets away with a broken ankle and a shallow cut on his cheek, but the Weasleys are as rattled as their family home. Harry politely requests that they spend the night at Grimmauld’s, and collects all their personal items one by one.  _ Accio _ Mr. Weasley’s pyjamas,  _ accio _ Ginny’s toothbrush,  _ accio _ first aid kit. 

He makes them take Vidoc’s taxi (a new wizarding startup gaining quick popularity due to the annoying no-Apparition situation), while he looks over the collapsed bits of the family home. Honestly, it’s not so bad? Not all of the magic gave out, just the recent fixings, and Harry has read enough of those in the frequently reprinted pamphlets to have an idea how to strengthen them. He is fairly certain will be able to fix it, but first he Apparates over to Grimmauld Place to prepare rooms for everyone, and see to it that they’re settled. 

The emotional fallout of the collapsing house takes its toll on the Weasleys. They owl Bill and Charlie and send word to Fred and George (who still live above their shop, even though they stopped selling their products when the Magic Losing Epidemia reached the magical businesses). They decide on not bothering Arthur and Ron with the news, but Ginny asks Harry to stay until Bill arrives, and when he does it’s already time for tea and in the end, Harry only gets back to the Burrow the next day. 

After careful considerations, he starts to bind some of the rocks together, recalling more and more of the useful knowledge they gathered while trying to make Grimmauld Place liveable in the last month. He makes sure to tie everything together securely, rebuild the place to be capable of housing a family without magic. He quite likes doing this sort of work, renovation, building. It’s satisfying, and honestly, quite magical to watch. Fascinating in a way that can be best compared to small children pressing their noses to see the newest brooms, or how the rubbish gets collected by the bin workers.

He is so absorbed in his work, he doesn’t notice the three figures until they’re upon him. 

The first blow knocks his glasses off and the second lands in his stomach. 

They are on him the next second, and he can’t catch his breath enough to mutter a spell. His wand is knocked out of his hand a second later, and then somebody steps on his fingers with their full weight right after, and Harry screams in pain. He can’t think straight besides  _ this shouldn’t be happening, the war is over this cannot happen _ , and then a second later, somehow distinguishable from the harsh breathing and the panting of his attackers, there is a sound, a low, warning growl, and there is someone hitting the ground next to Harry, and then two more thuds, and finally, quiet. 

When Harry looks up, Severus Snape stands there, a flying pan raised in his right hand as a weapon, greasy hair flying around in the wind. Harry might be in shock, but he notes that it’s a good look on him. 

“Can you stand?” Snape demands, face white as a ghost, frying pan still raised high. 

“How did you get here?” 

“Potter, for fucks sake, if you are able, just  **stand up** !” Snape all but shrieks at him, and Harry does as he asks, getting confused and concerned when Snape wobbles on his feet. There is a pool of blood next to him on the ground, blood which Harry assumed was his, but after quickly checking himself, he notes that only his mouth is bleeding, and not in nearly bad enough quantities to be responsible for all the blood so close to Snape. 

He steps closer, reaching out to grab Snape by the arm, but the wizard flinches back. 

“Did you get hurt?” 

For a second, it looks like Snape isn’t going to answer him. Then he speaks through clenched teeth. 

“Splinched.” 

He holds his other hand up, the one not holding the pan: his little finger is missing completely, blood still pouring out of its place tiredly. Harry panics. 

“Where did you come from? Where’s your wand? Have you seen mine?” 

Snape points ahead, and thank fucking god there’s Harry’s wand in one of the man’s fists, unbroken. He locates Snape’s just as easily, simply lying on the ground a foot apart from the blood. He tries to hand it to him, but Snape just laughs darkly and a bit desperately, and Harry is afraid he’s close to passing out. 

“It doesn’t work anymore.” 

Harry pockets it, steps closer to him again. He tries not to vomit. Snape is too sharp-cheeked, too pale up close. 

“We need to get your finger. Hold on to me! Where did you come from?”

A journey later, Harry is lying Snape down on a carpet while desperately trying to remember the spells Hermione was using on Ron when this happened in the forest. 

“ _ Accio _ finger,” Snape whispers, and Harry waits for it to appear but it doesn’t come. 

Snape gives him something which would probably pass for a glare if it weren’t half delirious. Harry wants to smack himself in the head when he understands.

“Shit, right, sorry.” 

“Accio Snape’s finger!” Harry is relieved and horrified in equal measures when the appendage arrives. 

_ “Coalesco _ .  _ Denuo Cura _ .” Snape says and Harry repeats, willing his magic to do as the words dictate, even when he doesn’t know what they mean or the correct motions to go with the spells. 

The finger glows blue and reattaches itself, and the bleeding stops thankfully, but Snape’s eyes still shut with a sigh, and he’s clearly still in pain. 

“Ah, fuck, don’t die, don’t die.” Harry keeps touching his face, forcing his eyes to open up again. “You faced a giant snake and you were fine, what’s this compared to that? Just tell me what else do you need?”

Snape hears him, thankfully still conscious.

“ _ Lacertus Potentia _ . Potion. On finger. Apply thickly. Your own hand too.” 

Harry stares at his own swelled up hand. He quite forgot about that in his haste to save Snape, but it throbs really painfully now that he’s reminded of it. He calls the salve to them and basically bathes Snape’s hand in it. 

“Painkiller and blood-replenisher, summon those too.” 

Harry complies. 

“Will it work? The potions in St. Mungo’s...” 

They all know the horrors of the last week. How many patients in St. Mungo’s died because as soon as their magic left them, the traditional Wizarding healing did not work so well on them anymore. 

But it gets Snape to blink an eye open and manages a better glare than before. Directed right at him. Harry feels relieved, but kind of wants to roll his eyes at the same time. This ridiculous man. 

“It’s not the potion's fault! We just lost the magic they interact with, they would work perfectly fine on  _ you _ .” At Harry’s inquisitive eyebrow, he concedes: “It’s still better than nothing.” 

“Drink a Clear-Head Solution and a Pepper-up. We’ll be safe here for a while, but not forever. Better get to Grimmauld Place as soon as possible. Pack my books.” Harry visibly stays put and stares at him until he adds, “Right now, if you please.” 

*

“You need to be careful,” Snape seethes as Harry apparates them back and complies to the frankly ridiculous amounts of alarm and repellent and safekeeping charms on his house. “You need to renew these daily, but make sure you do it under the protection of Fidelius.”

“Why?”

“This is how they found you. They must have had a magic-monitoring device or bribed their way into the Book of the Magical.”

Harry is sort of thinking of a safe way to make sure Snape feels better before leaving. One that doesn’t result in him getting insulted by the bastard. But that information is new. 

“The what now?”

Snape gives him the “how am I still surprised that you are so ignorant” glare. Harry gets those a lot, that’s why it has such a long name. 

“They created a book to keep an eye on those who still use music regularly.”

Wow, Ron and Hermione sure left that out of their daily reports. Wankers. Harry decides to tell them that they are worrying absolutely unnecessarily, when Snape reaches into his robes and...

“I got you a new wand from Ollivanders’. This one is not on any registry, and it will not be tied to your name even if they do discover it.” 

“I’ll be fine.” Harry argues. His face feels hot. Why did his mind go all to those places when Snape simply took something out of his inner pocket? “I can take care of myself. Besides as far as we know it, I am one of the last ones.” 

Snape continues, as if not even hearing him. 

“This Voldemort Initiative is something we have to be very, very careful about. Lunatics, the lot of them, but they do have a few prominent figures leading the main--”

“Wait, what? Voldemort… what?”

Snape scoffs at him. 

“Do they consciously keep you in the dark, or are they unaware as well? Granger and Weasley, I heard they’re working almost directly under Kingsley now, don’t they have informants?” 

Their betrayal stings, so Harry shots back with the first thing he can think of. 

“Why not go and do that yourself, you’ve got the experience.”

Snape miraculously doesn’t rise to the bait, which is likely a first ever in all their interactions. 

“It was more than enough to live through two wars, Potter, now that I have the good fortune to choose the level of my involvement… I think I’m going to sit this one out.” 

Harry wants to argue – but he can’t. It sounds… ignorant in a way, uncaring and harsh, because some people might need help, but the truth is – he understands how Snape feels. He’s too full of the last war. He cannot get into the middle of things again, however guilty he feels before falling asleep every night, while reading the news every day. He needs some time. 

“I am moving in. Someone needs to keep an eye on your sorry behind.” 

Harry wants to protest, but he changes his mind before he could finish forming the thought about where Snape could shove his… opinion. 

“Fine,” he snaps, feeling angry, exhausted, flustered and so many other things he thinks he’ll explode, “but don’t you take your eyes off it!”

Refusing to blush, feeling ridiculous and weirdly, a strange, tingly sort of gleeful on top of All Else, he proceeds to go up the stairs in the slowest catwalk possible, swaying his hips with every measured step. There is a strangled sort of noise from behind him, which sounds like Snape started cursing but bit back the words to not give him the satisfaction of reacting to his provocation, and when Harry turns back on the top of the stairs, there are pink spots on Snape’s skin and he’s breathing funny. 

Harry thinks that’s a win, even as something hot and slightly uncomfortable slithers around in his belly. What  _ the hell  _ got into him. He definitely needs to take a cold shower to get rid of his half… no, it’s definitely a proper hard-on. Why the fuck did that happen. Since Snape can’t really do magic anymore, he probably hasn’t been hexed, but perhaps this whole thing needs some thinking about. Soon. Right after he decides the best way to let Ron and Hermione know he is fucking livid with them. 

*

Snape moving in goes mostly unnoticed around the household, in the constant blur of red hairs. Harry sort of held off on recounting the whole frying pan incident, and without it the whole moving-in thing does not make much sense. It’s Ron who walks into Snape, straight after coming out of the bathroom next morning and toweling his hair dry, and everyone wakes to his high-pitched scream. Harry smiles. For the first time since the war ended, he can’t hurry out of bed fast enough. 

"So, what is Snape doing here?" Hermione asks cautiously at breakfast, as if expecting Harry to yell in response. 

He just grumbles. 

"He gave me a twenty minute dressing down about how he's more capable of protecting me with kitchen appliances than I am of taking care of myself with my magic, don't ask, he's been unbearably smug about it, so could you please just pretend it's nothing strange that he moved in? I don't wanna give him the satisfaction, damned bastard." 

Hermione and Ron exchange a glance. 

"Alright?" 

"Lovely, cheers." 

By the time the rest of the Weasleys turn up, Harry feels like he shouldn’t add to Snape’s embarrassment, and knows that it’s a total sham but he doesn’t want to deal with this. Not after last night's discoveries about how he wouldn’t mind male bodies coming in contact with him. Not when he found Snape’s wand in his trousers (no, not in a filthy way, Snape just didn’t ask for it back after the attack) and remembered that the man splinched himself and used the last of his magic to save him. How did he even know Harry was in danger? 

When everyone settles at breakfast, it seems like every single Weasley (except for Ron) is staring at him. From Hermione’s part, it’s a knowing grin (which Harry shudders to even try to unravel), and Snape, when he’s not ignoring everyone, is just glaring at him like he is the reason he has to eat with more than six Weasley’s (because when asked, everyone is on the agreement that Percy actually counts as four very boring persons on his own). Harry flashes him an innocent enough smile and reaches for some toast. 

*

Two days later, in the evening at nine, Hermione and Ron are already in bed (by Mrs Weasley’s strict orders that Harry for once agreed with, they worked too much). As time passes everybody mulles out of the library to retire, only Harry and Snape remain. Severus’s nose, as it was becoming the new normal, is deeply buried in an ancient study. 

Harry packs the other books up carefully, along with the notes and the biro, and places it on the small coffee table, settling gingerly onto the same sofa that Snape occupies. There is a low, perhaps warning (or just acknowledging?) sound coming from the other man, but it is the only feeble objection he offers. 

Harry sips his hot tea carefully, resting his eyes on him. Snape seems put together, healthier and cleaner than he ever looked under the Dungeons flickering light. His skin appears less yellow, no longer unusually pale from blood loss, and his eyes are… there is no better word for it than mesmerising. They are moving in a steady rhythm as he reads, but it becomes clear between one blink and the next that he noticed Harry’s scrutiny. His relaxed position stiffens for just a second, then relaxes back immediately. Snape must not have been such a fantastic spy after all, Harry muses, because as the minutes pass and he doesn't look away, Severus’ cheeks visibly redden a bit. 

Harry’s gaze is dancing on the other man’s features, observing him with a much greater intensity than he ever did. This is Severus Snape, a man with a complicated past. Becoming flustered enough (because of Harry looking at him!) that it shows. Finally, Snape’s gaze shoots up and connects with his. He is frowning. 

“What do you want?” 

Harry smiles, and sips again. He is warm, the mug is a pleasant weight in his hands, he is comfortably snuffled into the armchair, staring at this intriguing man… He feels completely at ease, and something more. Excitement?

“To talk, I suppose,” he murmurs gently, and hopes that his tone conveys that it is a suggestion rather than a demand. 

Severus sighs just a bit and lowers his reading, bookmarking the page and placing it gently on the tabletop. 

“You have questions?” 

So many, but most of them way too early to bring up. He still needs to examine these strange feelings Snape ignites in him. But there is also...

“About my mum.” 

Snape seems a bit wary, but returns his gaze.

“I’ve never known much about her,” Harry explains, a bit of a pleading edge to his voice, “Petunia never told me anything.”

There is a moment of silence. Snape closes his eyes, sighs, then opens them again. 

“The first thing you noticed about her was that overabundance of energy that seemed to follow her around.” Severus starts speaking slowly, his voice quieter but earnest too, and Harry’s heart wrenches together and he hones in on that voice, leaning closer unconsciously. “For years, she was constantly in motion. Loved to run and play and get others in trouble. On the other hand, her compassion knew no boundaries. She collected strays, be that a broken-winged bird, a rabbit without a home or the strange abused boy from the other end of the street.” 

Harry’s heart aches, for his mum, for himself without her, and for that little boy equally. 

“Were you in love with her?” 

Snape looks at him like he is very simple. 

“No. There was a time when I wondered, because my feelings were very… intense regarding her, but in retrospect, she was… for a few years, she was the only person I trusted wholeheartedly. Without any questions. Perhaps for the first time in my life. She was my best… and sometimes my only friend for about five years.”

Harry hears the wistfulness, the mourning in his voice. Severus seems lost in his memories, staring right ahead, pain and loneliness clear in his expression. Harry can’t let that continue. 

“I’m… I think I’d like to be your friend. Even though I know it won’t be the same.” 

Some of Snape’s surprise shines through his gaze. It speaks volumes about the progress they’ve made that Harry knows he will not get mocked for that simple sentiment. 

Severus doesn’t say anything, just nods slowly. Harry lets out a breath he shouldn’t have been holding, surely, this is just… Snape. Even if he is a human with no warmth in his life, and Harry feels a growing kinship and maybe even affection towards him, not to mention the new, most confusing things, when Harry wonders how he looks under his robes, or how he’d react to his touch on certain parts of his body. There is so much history between them though. 

History, Harry realises, that they may just be able to step away from, in this new age of No More Magic, in the cozy atmosphere in the library. 

“I definitely want to be your friend,” Harry reiterates, drawing Severus’ attention on him again. “But I think for that…” He swallows. “We need to talk about… I do own you an apology. Looking into your Pensive… I’m sorry about that. I’m also sorry about all the shit they put you through, even though that is in no way my fault, I still want to say that I’m sorry.” 

A vein is throbbing in Snape’s forehead, but his mouth is tightly shut, and after a few, agonising seconds, he gives another tight, forceful nod. 

Harry decides to go all in. What’s the worst that can happen? He survived Snape shouting at him for years. The man was barely even nasty to him anymore, the only thing he did was sass him all the time, but that was becoming borderline funny, so it never counted. 

“I also think that you owe me an apology for how you treated me in school. I’m also sorry for all the times I was a brat.” 

Snape looks extremely uncomfortable, but he mutters a very quiet, very rushed ‘I apologise.’ fairly quickly. 

“Good,” Harry smiles. “Do you want a cuppa?” 

At Snape’s affirmative answer, he gets up to do one instead of using his wand. It’s good to put a stop and some space between them, even though he doesn’t stop thinking about Severus while he boils the water and prepares the milk, sugar and ceramics. 

He sort of expects Snape to have gone back to his book by the time he gets back, but Snape is just staring at his hands with a pensive expression. 

They sip their tea in silence, and when Severus starts talking again, he tells story after story of their childhood, quickly becoming clear that its anything and everything he can remember of Lily. Harry starts weeping after the fourth memory, but he can’t remember the last time he felt so overfilled with joy, and the tears are a mix of heartbreak and gratitude and happiness. As if a dam broken on a river, stories flow out of Severus one after the other, and he becomes breathless and animated and his voice gets hoarse and his body shaky, and it’s the most natural thing in the world for Harry to move closer to him and catch his hand in an embrace. Tucks himself right next to his side, and Snape falls silent and relaxes into him slowly, squeezing Harry’s hand, until they are just sitting there, connected through memories, grief and warm skin. Harry doesn’t remember how they get up or let go or if they part at all (they must because Snape lives on a different floor than he does), he just remembers falling asleep as soon as his body hits the bed. 

*

Days pass and things happen in the outside world quickly, but Harry can scarcely focus on anything other than Snape. Severus has breakfast with them, disappears every day while the Weasley’s get noisily ready for their days and head out to work on their house or go about their various affairs, and reappears right as Harry wishes for some company. They spend their time together, in comfortable quiet or bickering about something stupid, and Harry can’t help but notice his hands, his eyes, the way he moves and the way he talks and-

There is nothing easy about this anymore. Harry has a hot rock sitting heavily in his stomach. His skin crawls for Snape’s touch, itches with the need to be closer to him. To brush against. To see exactly how they’d fit together. 

Finally, when they both step in the salon after lunch, he goes closer, steps right beside him, ignores Severus’s questioning gaze, focuses on the remembrances of the comfortable silence between them that’s steadily bleeding into tension. 

This tension, Harry realises, has been there ever since Snape hit that bastard in the face with the frying pan. It has been mounting in him, intensified by him watching Severus’ spiderlike, delicate fingers dancing across books, or flying in the air to illustrate his reasoning. It’s been there in the careful words about his mother, in the held-back emotions in his rich, deep voice. It has been there, perhaps, back when Harry started admiring the Half-Blood Prince’s intellect. When he discovered that Severus had been and will be loyal to him until the day he dies. The wand of his, still left in his care. 

Not that it matters, really. The only thing that really matters, in this world where everything is churning, turning, forming anew: if Snape feels the same. 

Without much hesitation, Harry leans forward and presses a cautious kiss on Snape’s lips. 

He doesn’t quite start back, never got the time for it, really, because Harry steps back almost as quickly as he moved in, trying to gauge his reaction. Severus' eyes are wide, his breathing hitched to a quickened, flickery thing, and then he opens his mouth. Harry leans forward to receive him, heart beating a terse staccato. 

Snape is blushing, and he snaps his mouth shut after a few moments. Harry figures he’ll have to ask, or perhaps just clarify that he meant it, how he meant it wholeheartedly… when they hear the unmistakable sound of someone opening the front door. 

After a sharp warning glance, Snape sprints up the stairs. Harry sighs, knowing better than to follow. 

*

The Weasley’s arrival is always a bit overwhelming after spending most of the day alone in Snape’s quieter company. But after the parents retired and Ginny left for Luna’s, Bill, Harry and Snape sit around, sipping whiskey in the kitchen. Harry only stays because he plans to catch Severus to talk about the kiss, nervous energy all over his body, but Bill is filling in his ex-professor about what he’d done since he left Hogwarts, and by the time Hermione and Ron arrive, they are engaged in a discussion about curse-breaking. Snape, and Harry is mad at himself for not expecting this, excuses himself and disappears in a second, timing perfectly to the point when Harry is distracted by his friends sharing the latest news. 

Harry tells himself it is unlikely that Snape would choose this particular thing to go unmentioned, especially considering their previous relationship. He just needs more time, surely. And if some time already went by without Snape turning the experience into an insult or using it to humiliate Harry in front of others with it in other creative ways… then that must mean something in and of itself. Perhaps not the same desire, but a gesture of friendliness, or respect? Well, one should hope, so Harry cheers himself on, until the very next day he is alone at lunch which had been routinely a thing they used to do together, until Harry fucked everything nice up. 

He wishes that at least Hermione and Ron were present, but they are busy as usual, and sending an owl to the ministry saying ‘I kissed Snape and now he’s ignoring me. I’m freaking out about the ignoring part, not the kissing part. Come home please. H’ just seems a bit pathetic. 

By the time Ron and Hermione actually get home, Harry has convinced himself that it’ll be best if no one ever hears about the whole thing ever. 

Supper is as close to ‘normal’ as it can be, with so many Weasley’s and one Granger and a Snape and a Harry pining for a Snape present. Harry mostly fakes eating. This evening, Hermione and Severus and Percy get into a debate about a new Ministry function, and everyone else slowly excuses themselves totally unsubtly when the debate gets heated. 

Harry and Ron get up at last, the latter kissing Hermione goodnight. Harry daydreams about doing the same to Severus, and therefore is a bit surprised that before going up the stairs, Ron grabs his arm to hold him back, then makes an aborted motion that ends with him scratching his head nervously.

“Um, so.”

Harry waits for him, trying to recall the last time Ron had been this unsure. It had to be right after they got the sword from the lake and they were going to meet Hermione. Or when he finally told his mum he didn’t want to go back to Hogwarts to redo his final year. Oh, that was rough. 

“Malfoy. He… We sort of.” Ron mumbles something unintelligible. 

“Sorry, what?” 

“Yeah, so, it was Neville’s idea.” 

Ron told him about two days ago that they had a pint in the Leaky while waiting for Hermione to finish with one of her groups. Neville was doing fine about the whole new order of things, thankfully, and he sent his best to Harry too. That was all that Ron originally shared. 

“I told him about the whole Malfoy thing, how he started getting under my skin with all the flirting, and--”

He stops, wriggling his hands. Harry helps. 

“I thought you said you were fine with that, trusting Hermione to be faithful and understanding why he’d do that.” 

Ron looks at him, confused. They stare at each other for a while, and Harry definitely starts to feel a bit confused about it too, thinking that maybe he misunderstood something, when Ron’s face lightens up with understanding.

“Oh, no, I get it, that’s totally fine. I meant it started freaking me out that Malfoy started flirting with  _ me.” _

Harry gaped at him.  _ Not. Possible. _

“You’re fucking with me.”

“No, mate, I swear I’m not.” Ron is so red in the face it clashes with his hair, and he is waving his hands around like a lunatic. “But see, this was my exact same reaction! I thought he was just doing it to fuck with me in other ways when he realised that him coming onto Hermione did not get to me anymore. But then...” 

Harry blinks and shuts his mouth. He is so bewildered, but also interested enough in the story, and he knows that if he interrupts Ron now to ask for time to process this, they might never get to the end of it. 

“He just kept going, because obviously I reacted… Well, as Hermione put it, as ‘someone who’s very uncertain of their own masculinity’. Anyway, then I told Nev, and he just adviced me to flirt right back, that it would get him to fuck off pretty quickly.”

“Gay chicken, basically?” Harry couldn’t help but interject. They had a very entertaining two weeks once in sixth year when Dean and Seamus were playing that. It ended with- what the Gryffindor Tower collectively presumed - something of a shag, which must have decided who won the game, because the next day they both started dating two Hufflepuff girls. 

“Yep. Except…” 

Harry is so not prepared, and at the same time, has a horrible inkling where this is going. (Makes him wonder about Seamus and Dean now, too.)

“Yeah so we might have snogged a bit in a bathroom and I think it kind of turns out that I might not be completely straight after all,” Ron says, all under one breath. 

There is a silence. Harry opens his mouth once, realises it might be rude to say  _ ‘wow _ .’ or  _ ‘really? Malfoy?’ _ and  _ ‘what’s  _ **_wrong_ ** _ with you?’ _ , then closes it without comment. 

“But… what about Hermione?” 

Ron, for the first time since the conversation started, relaxes. That makes even less sense to Harry. 

“Oh, that’s fine, she was there. Actually, she insisted we go to the bathroom in the first place. She said we were staring so intensely at each other we were getting a lot of attention or something.”

_ This is just getting stranger and stranger,  _ Harry thinks, wondering if he’s dreaming. 

“And she’s… okay with it?” 

Ron nods vehemently. 

“Well, she said we’ll agree in a couple of rules, the three of us, and that we shouldn’t bother her with this whole thing until all the Ministry shit calmed down a bit, because ‘she can’t be expected to guide a whole society and two men-children's emotional journeys at the same time’. So, basically, as long as we play nice with each other, and she knows everything about it, it’s… cool.” 

Harry isn’t equipped to deal with this. Not on top of his own personal crisis. His best friends made this huge decision in their love life that completely perplexes him. Then again, he recently realized he fancied Snape, so in the end, who is he to judge? 

He settles for a motion which is meant to convey “ _ as long as it is good for you and I don’t ever have to think about Malfoy as a sexual being ever again, I’m happy for you _ ”, but it ends up being a weird combination between a shrug, a wave and an incredibly awkward thumbs up, followed with a soft “egh” sound. And Ron has the audacity to look at him like  _ he _ is being nonsensical. 

Getting himself somewhat together, Harry clasps a hand on his best mate’s shoulder, squeezing it, muttering something about how they’ll always be friends. After that, with the ease of an almost decade-long companionship, they resume their way to their bedrooms silently, until Ron adds, sheepishly.

“You know, Malfoy is much more bearable when you can just kiss him quiet.” 

Harry decides it is time to say a quick goodnight after muttering “Well, I’d rather not.”

*

When Snape finally, finally marches up to him,  _ two whole goddamn days later _ , Harry gets a sudden heart attack, for once, and tells himself, in a very calming tone, that he should have expected just this. 

“We need to talk.” Snape orders, and Harry nods, gaze following his Adam’s apple.  _ Shit, perhaps, don’t stare at his neck. If he attacks, you’d get a better advantage by watching his face.  _

Severus moves closer to him, and now Harry cannot look away from his eyes. They are confused, angry, searching, beautiful...

“You’ve lost your mind,” Severus declares. 

Harry shakes his head. Moment of truth. 

“I want you.”

It’s unmistakable, clearly stated. There are so many things Harry feels unsure about these days, but this, this is not one of them. Still, Snape hesitates. His whole face is pinched together, and he kind of looks like he has the worst stomach cramp in history. Harry can relate a bit, actually. 

“Are you sure?” He forces out finally. 

Harry nods. He holds out a hand, which brushes Snape’s. Electricity. Leaves it palms up, an open offer between their bodies. 

“Harry, all your ideas are reckless and not at all thought through,” Severus breathes, and it sounds like a caress. He is closer now, his nose, the side of his face, his hair touching Harry’s skin. Harry struggles with the magnetic pull to lean even closer and kiss him properly. 

“I’ve thought about this.”

“Have you?” 

Harry swallows, nods again. Snape’s hand, which was only just laying on his for a precious few seconds, curls tightly around his wrist like a vine. 

“Kiss me again.” 

Harry lifts his gaze, ranking all over Snape’s figure, the uncertainty still written in his posture, pulling away from Harry, angling another way, not towards his body.

So he kisses him, lips pressed to his for a longer time, one heartbeat, two, a dozen, until Severus finally melts and reciprocates. 

The first touch of his tongue, like the sparkles that flew out of his wand when he first held it. Being in his arms like flying. Hot and heady and  _ home _ .  _ This is what real magic is –  _ Harry thinks, and its incredibly sappy, but his whole soul sings with the truth of it. 

(It’s a letting go that doesn’t feel like a parting, no, not a hurtful goodbye at all.)

Severus sighs when they pull back. Harry hopes he misses the contact just as much as he does. 

“More, please?” 

Snape is bewildered, so, so surprised. He licks his lips, contemplates. Harry squeezes his hand, and firmly tells himself not to burst out some idiotic sentiment about how he’d gladly give up all of his magic (again) for one more kiss like that. (How he maybe, at that very moment, lost it forever and gained something equally important.)

“But you like it, right? Cause I love it. God, that thing you did with your tongue...” 

Snape blinks at him, and suddenly his whole demeanour changes. 

“Not here.”

_ Which is not a no! _ Harry grins.

“Wanna come to my room?” 

Severus makes a face. Harry works very hard to not be offended by it, and only slightly manages. 

“No. That’s where they’d first look for you.” 

“Ah.” 

“Mine.” 

Harry hasn’t been in Snape’s room since he moved in. There are potions and books lining the walls on the shelves, but it looks way nicer than his office did in the castle. 

Snape closes the door and clears his throat. Harry goes over to him before he can even think of rejecting him, and kisses him softly, sweetly. Severus pulls him closer by the waist, and after that they are gone, lost in between lips and skin and sensations. 

Harry never made love before so gently, never been enveloped and pleased and bathed so thoroughly in another person’s attention and affection so perfectly. He gives back the best he can, and they stoke and kiss each other into a shuddering completion. 

Later, when someone pulls away to take a proper breath, in the warm, intimate air of their closeness, with Severus’s pupils blown and face flushed and hair in disarray, Harry dares to ask him. 

“Will you give us a chance?” 

And Severus says ‘yes’. After that, he starts to say something else that sounds vaguely sarcastic, so Harry kisses the rest of his sentence away. (Ron was right about the handy way to shut up Slytherins. He’ll have to tell him sometime.)

*

_ 10 months later _

Harry woke to a warm, wet kiss being pressed to his collarbone. 

“Sev-?” 

He murmured, confused in his hazy half-awake state. What time was it? What day? 

“You can sleep more, it’s Saturday,” Severus said, but his voice was deep and sensual, and if there was only one thing Harry managed to learn in the months they were together, it was that when Severus used that voice, paying attention was going to be very rewarding for him.

“No, sex is good, I’m up for sex,” he slurred, pushing himself closer to Severus’s wandering hands. 

“Oh, and here I thought you just brought your wand into bed with you,” Snape whispered into his ear after biting his throat gently. Harry was already at full mast, but that was not so unexpected in the morning and after the unsaid promise of hot, hot sex from his partner. 

“Hmm?”

Severus chuckled. 

“What?”

“I clearly only keep you around for your intelligent comments. And your lovely manner.” 

“One more word of criticism out of you and I won’t suck you off,” Harry threatened, not really meaning it, but trying for a stern voice. 

“How would I even survive,” Severus retorts, and Harry can practically hear the eyeroll, but a quieter request follows, “I want to see if you can come in less than five minutes.” 

Harry can’t get enough of his proximity - even with Severus’ erection in his mouth, he wants to get closer. The noises he makes excite Harry endlessly, the strong hand in his hair, his fingers scraping his scalp, oh, Harry could stay between his legs for eternity. He ruts into the bed under him mindlessly, trying to take Severus deeper, sucking and drooling and licking enthusiastically when he doesn’t succeed. The five minute passes a few times over. None of them mind. 

*

They were sitting in the Official Room of Entertaining Guests later (they just never got around to naming it properly), and Harry still felt a bit dazed when he saw Draco and Ron so casually touch. They’ve had a shared supper together, just the two Slytherins and the once-golden trio, and now everyone was nursing an evening drink of their choice. Hermione, as always nowadays when she was off work, sprawled out on a sofa, appearing half-awake. The boys tried to keep her to a limited eleven hours a day schedule, but it was a constant struggle to get her to take some time off acting as the new Minister. Draco was sitting next to her, idly playing with a lock of her hair, and while Ron was occupied by the chessboard in front of him, he had his thigh pressed against Malfoy. Of course, Ron told him just a few days ago that he feels very similarly when he notices Severus and Harry sharing the occasional kiss or touch in public. So it didn’t matter much, because they know they were all pretty serious about it. Things just worked between Harry and Severus, and Draco brought an unexpected spice into Ron and Hermione’s relationship. 

About five months ago, they had the last known magical person report their powers lost. The witch lived in protective custody in Staffordshire, and after their magic was lost, they said to be glad to have an opportunity to interact with their friends again. The communities soldiered on, mostly doing pretty well into their way to adjusting to the muggle lifestyles, but constant support they needed, and the social establishments their world lacked before was slowly building itself into real governments. The newest project they all worked on (in bigger or smaller ways) was the school the New Ministry opened three months ago. Molly, Draco and Harry all worked there or for the cause in some capacity, with Ron as a liaison. 

Things were as fine as they could be, truly. Every day had its challenges, but they already established the new routines, and in the last week or so, magic wasn’t a topic that came up… almost at all. So when Draco quietly remarked,

“I still miss it  _ so much _ sometimes,” Harry needed a second to think about what he meant. 

Ron gave an answering groan, and Hermione sat up a bit to wind her arm around his back in support. 

“But we’re doing all right, now, aren’t we?” She questioned very gently. 

Draco snorted. Despite his harsh tone, he looked back at his girlfriend with a soft look. 

“No, we’re not doing anything anymore, because we  _ can’t _ . Of course we keep on living and adjusting and surviving because what else is there to do, but…” 

Harry knew what he meant. Their minds needed healing, even before Voldemort, even before the disease started, and they only started on that challenging journey recently and shakily. They talked about this, over and over, because talking it out made it easier to breathe and to connect. 

“Not every development that the new age of magicloss brought upon us was completely unpleasant, I found,” Severus interjected in a very different tone of voice. 

Harry smiled at him, and heard Ron mutter “that sounds almost romantic actually”, and his grin grew when Severus’s eyes flickered over at him in humour. 

“Yes, Potter is all right too, I suppose,” Severus added, and this time, they all snickered, and Harry debated disowning his best friends  _ and their boyfriend _ for a second. 

“You know you’re lucky to have me,” He replied, sticking his tongue out at him. Sticking his tongue out at Severus has been one of his favourite new hobbies, because his former professor never quite managed to leave it without reaction or retaliation. Sometimes he straight up tried to bite it off, which resulted in a few memorable snogging sessions. 

Severus’s eyebrows flicked up and Harry felt himself getting excited at the prospect of a good banter coming up. 

“ _ Very _ ,” Severus’s drawled sarcastically, “After all, what would I do without such an  _ astonishingly idiotic _ \--

“Merlin, please stop flirting!” Draco interrupted, whining without any shame whatsoever. “Let’s go back to the part where I was trying to talk to you about magic.” 

Hermione poked him in the side. 

“If we didn’t have the epidemic, we never would have gotten together! If everything had gone on as it did before, we’d be dating Victor Krum now instead of you.” 

Ron and Draco both stiffened, and Harry couldn’t help but laugh. Ron went very red very quickly, and to give his friend an out, Harry quickly added, 

“And you wouldn’t be the unsung hero of the whole Once-Wizarding World, Hermione. I’m sure a lot of people can thank their lives to you rising to the challenge.” 

“Hermione is awesome,” Draco agreed flippantly, voice trailing into a whine again, “but don’t you just wish you could still  _ Summon  _ things?”

Harry shrugged and didn’t answer. The silence was next broken by Snape’s quiet voice. 

“Some ancient texts suggest that the Magic has not always been with us. You learned in school about some of the folklores, _ a gift of Merlin _ and the sort. The mayans believed that for the world to be in a state of balance, there had to be periods of time when the gifted became common folk, and similarly, when the weight tipped too much to the other side, nature itself required that the gifted would fill the world with magic.” 

Ron scratched his chin, thinking deeply. 

“And you think this is true? That it just needs a… what, some sort of big change and our magic might come rushing back?” 

Severus cocked his head to the side. Harry felt warm and comfortable, resting his gaze on his lover, half-curious of his answer, half-content to just stare at him and the careful way he formed his words. 

“These texts are vague and old, but I do believe in the universe trying to right itself. It bled out of us so quickly, I can easily imagine it flowing right back in.” 

“I disagree,” Hermione said, “I think it will not come back until we get our shit together.” 

Draco laughed quietly, surprised and delighted at her cursing, Ron looked completely enamoured, and even Severus had half a smirk on his face. 

“What would that entail?” 

Hermione hummed. 

“I have more of a feeling than a real set of criteria,” she explained,” but we have so many things to fix, our relationship with the magical creatures, the environment, then there is the social inequality and that pureblood thing and everything wrong in the muggle world…”

She relaxed back and closed her eyes, waving her hands in the air to indicate all the things she passionately tried to make better. 

Her words were met with wishful silence. Harry sipped his drink. 

Later, when Ron and Hermione and Draco departed for their apartment, Harry finished his evening wash, and when he glanced into the bedroom, saw that Snape was already asleep in their bed, curled up on his side, looking soft and warm. He smiled at the cosy, inviting picture he made.

Before going in to snuggle next to him, he flicked the light switch down in the bathroom. “ _ Nox _ ,” he whispered with a wistful smile, thinking about their conversation from the afternoon. 

Maybe one day. Maybe one day. 

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! how did you find it? tell me in the comments. :)


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